Head hooks a winner

MEREDITH — The 2013 Great Rotary Fishing Derby’s winner, Mark Head, was pumped about his big $15,000 cash prize, but he wasn’t about to give away the location of his catch.

Head caught a 2.76-pound White Perch on Sunday morning on Big Squam Lake. He used smelt as bait and said that there was no way he was going to give up any more information about how or where he caught the fish. He said that he knew that it was a big one, but wasn’t sure it would be a winner.

“I knew it was a pretty good size one,” Head said.

Head has been fishing in the Great Rotary Fishing Derby for four years, and when he isn’t fishing he works at Forestland Improvement out of Chocorua. With an ear to ear grin, Head yelled to his friends to call his wife, much to the amusement of everyone at the closing ceremonies.

Second prize, and $5,000, went to Lawrence Shipley of Belmont. He was fishing with his grandson Chris Dalton, and caught a 4.8 pound, 26-inch pickerel in Lake Opechee. When asked how the weekend of fishing went, he described it as brutal.

“I don’t know, I need a cold one,” Shipley said.

Third prize, and $3,000, was awarded to Thomas Knight of Hampton. Knight caught a 30.5 inch, 6.20 pound Cusk in Lake Winnipesaukee. He said that he planned on eating the fish, but it might actually make a memorable mount instead. He said that he would be splitting the money three ways with his crew, and that the money would help them get through the winter. Overall, he said that he was in shock about the big win.

“I feel super,” Knight said. “I thought I was hearing things when they called my name.”

This Fishing Derby was a bit different than past years, with no more tagged Rainbow Trout, in an effort to make the competition more fair. There were seven fish categories that were considered as winners throughout the weekend: Black Crappie, Pickerel, Lake Trout, Rainbow Trout, Cusk, Yellow Perch and White Perch. The largest out of the seven on each day are put into a pool and a winner is picked.

The heaviest fish over the course of the weekend were also awarded $500. Todd Vachon had the largest Black Crappie, Corey Verrill had the largest Cusk, Lawrence Shipley had the largest pickerel and John Denomme caught the biggest Rainbow Trout. Travis Williams caught the largest White Perch and Gerald Miller brought in the biggest Yellow Perch of the weekend.

The talk of the derby on Sunday afternoon was when 13-year-old Tayla Hammond weighed in a 30-inch, 8.6-pound Lake Trout. When walking through the crowd people were talking about the huge trout that a young girl had pulled in that day. That girl was Hammond, and it was one big fish.

Hammond used emerald shiners for bait to catch the huge fish, which tends to roam the cold, deep waters of lakes. She and her father Dwayne had been fishing throughout the weekend in Lake Winnisquam and Hammond managed to pull in a huge one that awarded her $250 for the largest Lake Trout on Sunday, and an additional $500 for having the largest Lake Trout of the Derby.

The Hammonds fish together every weekend, mostly in derbies, and this wasn’t the first time she had won a prize. She won $50 in the Country Pond Ice Fishing Derby last weekend.

Tayla Hammond said that she had been fishing since she was 6 years old and that this was definitely the largest fish she had ever caught. While she said it was difficult bringing the trout from the water, her father had a proud smile on his face knowing that his daughter had done well.

“I usually don’t catch trout,” she said. “I usually catch Crappie and Bass. It was probably the biggest by four pounds.”

The five heaviest of each type were hung on the board on both Saturday and Sunday for prizes of $250, $200, $150, $100 and $50. On Saturday the Black Crappie Winners were, in order of placement, Harry Blood, Lee Clark, Elwin Sidney and Stan Welcome had the fourth- and fifth-place finishes.

For Cusk the winners were Corey Verrill, Chris Johnstone, Harry Geiselman, Casey Cook and William Welcome. For Lake Trout the winners were Joe Denoncourt, Paul Kapij, John Varadi, Anthony Vallone and Bruce Marinel.

The largest Cusks were caught by second-place overall winner Thomas Knight, Jamie Perron, Steve Noyes, Roger Carignan and Christopher Parris. The winners for the largest Pickerel went to Steve Dubois, Dennis Taylor, Elena Dabney, David Whitcomb and Jessica Mason. The winners for the Black Crappie category went to Todd Vachon, William Chase, James Nason, William Chamberlin and Dague Clark.